Warning: Spoilers follow for all six Mission: Impossible films before Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One...
Tom Cruise is launching once more into international espionage action with Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, the seventh film in an increasingly impressive franchise that dates back to 1996.
Cruise's world-saving Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt has worked with the best while also going up against the best (and sometimes those are one and the same) during his decades of stopping terrorists, arms dealers, and psychos looking to annihilate humanity just for the philosophical hell of it. And in honor of the reckoning that's on the horizon, we've looked back over the last (near) 30 years and ranked his teammates - yes, even the dastardly ones who were big fat fakers.
From hackers and anaylists to master thieves and competing operatives, Ethan's allies have come from all corners of the clandestine spy world. Sometimes mentors, occasionally pupils, they've all been instrumental on Ethan's journey as an expert, down-to-the-wire mission impossibler.
Here are the Top 20 Ethan Hunt Mission: Impossible teammates, ranked from useful to crucial to the MVP elite.
20. Billy Baird
Played By: John Polson
Featured In: Mission: Impossible 2
Aussie pilot Billy wasn't the only character who never returned from Mission: Impossible 2 -- see: Anthony Hopkins' Swanbeck and Thandiwe Newton's Nyah -- but he was the most forgettable of the bunch, and the past ally of Ethan's who left the smallest impression (despite also appearing in the video game Mission: Impossible - Operation Surma). Billy helped Ethan locate the movie's villain, track Nyah, infiltrate Biocyte Pharmaceuticals, and... save Nyah (who was about to take her own life). Despite all that, however, Billy just never popped the way the rest of Ethan's crew did, past or future.
19. Trevor Hanaway
Played By: Josh Holloway
Featured In: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Fresh off his starring roll on Lost, Josh Holloway cameod in Ghost Protocol as doomed IMF Agent Hanaway. Technically part of Agent Jane Carter's team, and not Ethan's, Hanaway's death at the hands of Léa Seydoux's assassin, Sabine, made for a terrific opening scene and kicked off the main plot involving nuclear launch codes. Also, Hanaway's untimely demise helped send Carter on a mission of revenge -- as he was also her romantic partner (pointing out the dangers being an IMF agent poses to loved ones in a movie that would eventually reveal Ethan's wife was now living with a new identity).
18. Jim Phelps
Played By: Jon Voight
Featured In: Mission: Impossible
(Traitor Alert) The character of Jim Phelps, who was the Ethan Hunt-style hero/lead of both Mission: Impossible TV series, was played by Jon Voight in the first movie (and Peter Graves on TV). In a mildly controversial move at the time, Phelps was killed off in Mission: Impossible during his team's mission in Prague (as the film passed the torch to Ethan) -- only to then be revealed as the villain behind the murder of his own team members, having faked his own death. Phelps was Hunt's mentor but this former hero had become so disillusioned and bitter that he never thought twice about framing Ethan for multiple traitorous homicides.
17. Franz Krieger
Played By: Jean Reno
Featured In: Mission: Impossible
(Traitor Alert) Ethan being framed and turned into a fugitive is a franchise hallmark, as is Ethan being surrounded by double agents. But he was never more betrayed, and beset on all sides by hidden villains, than he was in the first movie when his "backup team" was still comprised of two agents secretly working for Jim Phelps. To be fair, Ethan had to recruit from the "disavowed" list and Jean Reno's Krieger was shady as hell. But even though Krieger would prove to be rotten, and the actual murderer of Agent Davies, he still helped Ethan pull off the Impossible when they raided the Langley vault.
16. Claire Phelps
Played By: Emmanuelle Béart
Featured In: Mission: Impossible
(Traitor Alert) In a different world, in scenes that never made it to the theatrical release, Ethan and Jim Phelps' "widow" Claire had a romantic interlude in the aftermath of the Prague massacre. But the decision was ultimately made to keep the romantic tension intact without actual consummation and Claire, as Jim's young agent bride, became less of a femme fatale and more of just a cog in Phelps' plan to steal and sell the NOC list. Like Krieger, Claire helped Ethan steal the NOC list from Langley and then got her comeuppance at the end when she was killed by her own husband while trying to stop him from eliminating Ethan.
15. Hannah Williams
Played By: Ingeborga Dapkunaite
Featured In: Mission: Impossible
IMF Agent Hannah Williams plays a small role in the overall Mission: Impossible saga, and got blown up fairly quickly in the first movie, but unlike most of the operatives Ethan worked with in that film she was on the up and up and died a hero (due to the explosive button-pushing of either Jim or Claire).
14. Jack Harmon
Played By: Emilio Estevez
Featured In: Mission: Impossible
Wise-cracking computer expert Jack got the most eye-popping death (pun intended) during Mission: Impossible's Prague fiasco while also gifting Ethan the "red light/green light" gum bomb that he'd use to save his ass twice afterwards. Jack, played by established movie star Emilio Estevez, was snarky and fun and had a wonderful flirtation with Agent Davies, with several signs pointing to them being an IMF couple.
13. Sarah Davies
Played By: Kristin Scott Thomas
Featured In: Mission: Impossible
Agent Davies ranking above Agent Harmon is gently arbitrary, though Dame Kristin Scott Thomas is a BAFTA award-winning (and Oscar-nominated) actress, and that gives Davies the edge here, as well as her also working the floor of the Prague party with Ethan (while he's in disguise). After the mission goes sideways and she flees the scene, she's stabbed in the back by Jim Phelps' secret stooge, Krieger, and dies in Ethan's arms.
12. August Walker
Played By: Henry Cavill
Featured In: Mission: Impossible - Fallout
(Traitor Alert) Like Krieger and Claire before him, Henry Cavill's blunt instrument CIA agent August Walker was revealed to be a double-agent when he turned out to be a leader amongst the Apostles, codenamed "John Lark," who'd written an apocalyptic manifesto. And also like Krieger and Claire before him, Walker had to play along to get along, shadowing Ethan for the CIA while also aiding him in several instances, the most notable being the big bathroom "arm reload" brawl in Paris where he and Ethan fought tooth and nail against an enemy operative.
11. Max/White Widow
Played By: Vanessa Redgrave/Vanessa Kirby
Featured In: Mission: Impossible/Mission: Impossible - Fallout
These two were never IMF, CIA, or any other government-affiliated agency, but the family legacy aspect here, for these arms dealer "tweeners," gives them a big boost. The Vanessas, Redgrave and Kirby, represent two generations of the black market acquisitions business, as Mission: Impossible's Max became a pawn in Ethan's plant to discover the identity of NOC list hunter "Job," while her daughter Alanna, introduced in Mission: Impossible - Fallout, is a philanthropist (who secretly arms-deals and money-launders). Having inherited the family "business" from her mother (who almost returned in Ghost Protocol), Alanna now operates with a bit more of a moral compass. Or, in the very least, she'll trade favors like she did when Ethan saved her life from the Apostles and she gave him one of the plutonium cores they were after. "White Widow" Alanna returns in Dead Reckoning Part One.
10. Julia Meade-Hunt
Played By: Michelle Monaghan
Featured In: Mission: Impossible, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Okay, Julia's not a a trained agent. Or a trained anything. Okay, being a nurse (and later a doctor) is a "trained anything" but you know what we means. Julia was Ethan's wife who assumed a new identity after the two chose to fake her death when things got too dangerous for her. And while she's never officially accompanied Ethan on a mission, she was instrumental in saving the day, and Ethan himself, at the end of Mission: Impossible 3 and Mission: Impossible - Fallout. Just being Ethan's wife, or ex-wife, has placed her in pressure-cooker crucibles. She's killed villains, electrocuted Ethan (to save his life) and resurrected him, and helped disarm freaking nuclear bombs. Yup, Julia's rad as hell.
9. Lindsey Farris
Played By: Keri Russell
Featured In: Mission: Impossible III
Though not in Mission: Impossible III long, Agent Lindsey Farris is hugely important in the saga. She's the first ever IMF trainee, mentored under Ethan, who Ethan passed and recommended for active field duty. She's also the reason Ethan unretires from field duty (despite being engaged to Julia) after she goes missing while on the trail of nefarious global criminal Owen Davian. We briefly get to see teacher and student battle side by side during her extraction from Berlin but things get tragic when Ethan is unable to save her before the time-release bomb implanted in her brain erupts and kills her. After six years between movies, Mission: Impossible III was immediately given personal stakes as Ethan found himself torn between his new love and his previous pupil.
8. Declan Gormley
Played By: Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Featured In: Mission: Impossible III
As mentioned above, J.J. Abrams' Mission: Impossible III arrived six years after the second film and brought a renewed focus on teamwork and IMF camaraderie. Even though most of Ethan's team from III never returned after that film, they were instrumental in thwarting the nasty "Rabbit's Foot" plans set into motion by Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian and Billy Crudup's turncoat John Musgrave. Chopper pilot Declan was down for intricate kidnapping schemes at the Vatican as well as flying a getaway rescue mission through massive rotating wind turbine propellers in Berlin - while dodging enemy missiles! Yeah, Declan was aces and it's a bummer he never got an encore. Also his name is Declan Gormley.
7. Zhen Lei
Played By: Maggie Q
Featured In: Mission: Impossible III
Along with Declan, Maggie Q's Zhen was part of Mission: Impossible III's "new blood." A weapons, demolition, and close-quarter combat expert, Zhen was on hand for the failed rescue mission of Agent Farris, the Vatican heist (of which the prize was one Owen Davian), and a dangerous theft in Shanghai. She's one of the few agents to meet Ethan's wife Julia at the movie's end, after Julia was unfortunately brought into the hazardous world of the IMF. It's possible that Zhen was never meant to return, since she was a part of the life Ethan wanted to leave behind, but since the franchise developed a pretty nifty memory and continuity following this film it would be super sweet to see Zhen again.
6. Nyah Nordoff-Hall
Played By: Thandiwe Newton
Featured In: Mission: Impossible 2
Ethan's love interest in M:I 2 was Nyah Nordoff-Hall, a master thief who became, at first, an unwitting pawn in the IMF's mission to find her ex-beau, rogue agent Sean Ambrose. As the only romantic entanglement, pre-Isla Faust, who could hold her own with Ethan out in the world of spies, secrets, and schemes, Nyah led Ethan through a cat and mouse-style courtship before agreeing to go undercover and take advantage of Ambrose's feelings for her. It eventually backfires, and she's turned into a human virus bomb, of sorts, but Nyah was big, heroic part of the second movie, even almost sacrificing herself rather than allowing all of Australia to be infected with the Chimera virus. Back when these movies weren't all that frequent, Nyah's courage and craftiness was an integral part of the story.
5. Jane Carter
Played By: Paula Patton
Featured In: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
IMF Agent Carter was a smart, gutsy addition to Ghost Protocol while also showcasing an emotion-driven revenge side quest story about an agent who not only lost her colleague, but her romantic partner. Echoing the dangers Ethan faced back in Mission: Impossible III, when he lost Agent Farris and almost lost Julia, Paula Patton's Carter helped complete Ghost Protocol's special "ragtag" team of exiles, as a concerningly-bitter Ethan had to save the world with an assembly of agents who weren't exactly field experts. There were plans to have Carter return in Rogue Nation, but the scheduling sadly didn't work out. Still, Carter remains an awesome part of what many argue is the best Mission: Impossible movie and rose to the occasion for a near-impossible op that Ethan's team completed by the skin of their teeth.
4. William Brandt
Played By: Jeremy Renner
Featured In: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
While Jeremy Renner was out there Avenging he was also Impossible'ing, becoming one of the very few IMF operatives to make a return appearance (though Renner would turn down a cameo in Fallout). Analyst William Brandt gets caught up in the fugitive Ghost Protocol plot after the Kremlin is bombed and the IMF Secretary is killed. Often out of his depth in the field, yet still holding his own when needed, Brandt carries a secret shame with him, feeling that he is responsible for the death of Ethan's wife Julia after failing to warn them about Serbian assassins. After saving the world with the rest of the Ghost Protocol team, however, Brandt gets to learn the truth about Julia's new life and gets welcomed into Ethan's circle of trusted colleagues. Brandt returns in Rogue Nation to help track down an in-hiding Ethan and stop the sinister designs of The Syndicate.
3. Isla Faust
Played By: Rebecca Ferguson
Featured In: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Introduced fairly recently, by Mission: Impossible standards, Rebecca Ferguson's ex-MI6 agent Isla Faust was an instant, immediate win for Rogue Nation, acting as a lethally-skilled wild card with her own reasons for taking down The Syndicate (from within). Like Ethan had experienced many times before, Isla had been spurred and rejected by her own government, the victim of a corrupt element, and now ran with a serious streak of disillusionment. In Fallout, her and Ethan's paths crossed once more, again almost at opposed purposes, thanks to The Syndicate's leader, Solomon Lane, but Isla always comes through for the IMF when it counts and millions of lives are on the line. She's the only field agent in the series who's believably as capable, or more capable, than Ethan while also teasing a romantic spark out of our hero that we haven't seen since his marriage to Julia.
2. Benji Dunn
Played By: Simon Pegg
Featured In: Mission: Impossible III, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Simon Pegg's handful of scenes in Mission: Impossible III were so fun that IMF technician Benji has followed a full arc of going from the stuffy cubicle to the hardline field, slowly morphing into one of the most brilliant and dependable Impossible agents ever. He's been a crucial team member ever since his assist in III and in Ghost Protocol he was even out there initially, without Ethan, testing his mettle as part of Agent Carter's crew. Benji is often used for moments of light comedy but he's also always there when the s*** goes down and the world needs to, you know, not be obliterated or poisoned by nuclear weapons. He's the longest-running Ethan teammate after...
1. Luther Stickell
Played By: Ving Rhames
Featured In: Mission: Impossible, Mission: Impossible 2, Mission: Impossible III, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Ving Rhames' once-disavowed IMF hacker Luther Stickell -- aka "The Net Ranger," aka "Phineas Phreak" -- has been in every Mission: Impossible movie. Even the one time he wasn't an official part of the team, in Ghost Protocol. After helping Ethan take down treacherous IMF legend Jim Phelps, Luther's been a fully reinstated agent and Ethan's indispensable right hand. He's helped stop Phelps, Sean Ambrose, Owen Davian, Solomon Lane (twice), and has been there in the thick of it with Ethan for almost 30 years. Oh, and needless to say he exhibits sheer genius when it comes to computers. In Fallout, Luther even felt supremely guilty when potentially world-devastating plans were put into action because Ethan chose to save his life instead of stopping the bad guys. He's a team player, through and through, and the MVP of Ethan's impossible missions.
Who is your favorite Mission: Impossible teammate? Did we miss any greats? Let's discuss in the comments!
